01 — Introduction

Eric Catalano

EECS @ UC Berkeley · Founder @ DreamIT · Avionics Engineer

I am into
GitHub

I like building things, designing PCBs, writing firmware, and working across embedded systems. Most of my time outside class goes toward hardware and software, and I'm genuinely interested in most things EE or CS. I want to work on technology that actually matters and leaves a real impact on the future.

Yrs Building
Months Since Hello World
Problems Solved
· GH Contributions
FLIGHT COMPUTER // GND STATION UPLINK
LINK · NOMINAL
ARM: DISARMED SEQ: STANDBY T+00:00 SYS: NOMINAL
PREFLIGHT IGNITION LIFTOFF APOGEE CHUTE LANDING
ALTITUDE
0m
VELOCITY
0m/s
ACCEL
0.0g
PRESSURE
101.3kPa
TEMP
22°C
BATTERY
98%
// CAN BUS LOG ─────────────────────────
scroll

Work Experience

DreamIT Jan 2026 – Present · 4 mos Full-time

Founding Engineer

  • Architecting an AI-powered 3D game generation engine built in Rust
  • Developing core engine systems including rendering, asset pipelines, and simulation components
  • Designing a modular plugin-based architecture to support extensibility and scalable development
  • Leading technical execution by defining engineering roadmaps, milestones, and system architecture
  • Coordinating development across the team, combining engineering work with project management
DreamIT Dec 2025 – Jan 2026 · 2 mos Internship

Software Engineer Intern

  • Developed internal tooling and prototype features for AI-driven game world generation
  • Implemented systems for asset management, rendering, and engine extensibility
  • Built demo applications to showcase generative gameplay environments
  • Worked with cross-functional startup team to iterate quickly on new product ideas
UC Berkeley IEEE Jan 2026 – Present · 4 mos Leadership

APE Software & Infrastructure Lead

  • Leading development of software infrastructure supporting Berkeley's Advanced PCB Engineering initiative
  • Building internal tooling and automation pipelines to support PCB design workflows
  • Managing repositories, documentation, and development infrastructure for engineering teams
  • Collaborating with electrical engineers to streamline board design and testing processes
Handshake Feb 2026 – Present · 3 mos Contract

AI/ML Research Evaluator

  • Evaluated and refined AI model outputs across multimodal domains including audio, visual, and text
  • Assessed generative AI image editing capabilities, providing structured feedback to optimize model precision
  • Contributed to iterative model improvement pipelines through systematic quality analysis of AI-generated content
STAR Jun 2025 – Present · 11 mos Berkeley, CA

Avionics & DAQ Engineer

  • Developing avionics and data acquisition systems for student-built rocket platforms
  • Designing sensor boards integrating pressure sensors, thermocouples, and RTDs
  • Implementing embedded firmware for microcontrollers handling telemetry and sensor data
  • Contributing to rocket flight instrumentation and testing
Berkeley Formula Racing Aug 2025 – Present · 9 mos Berkeley, CA

Electronics Team

  • Designing custom electronics for Formula SAE electric racecar systems
  • Developing a custom 9-axis IMU board with STM32 + ISM330DHCX + LIS2MDL
  • Integrating accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers; writing firmware for CAN communication
  • Owned layout decisions around decoupling, grounding, and signal integrity

Things I've Built

P.01

DAQ Box DAQ Box

DAQ Box — STAR

Data acquisition system built to capture sensor data across all avionics boards during hotfires, live engine tests with real stakes. Designed, tested, and brought up the PCBs end to end. Not a simulation: actual hardware running on a live engine.

PCB Design Embedded C Sensors STAR

P.02

Solar Battery Optimizer

Solar + Battery Optimizer

Live web app that estimates optimal battery charge/discharge schedules to avoid PG&E 4–9pm peak rates. Uses geolocation, time-of-use logic, and user load inputs to model real cost savings.

React TypeScript Vercel

P.03

9-Axis IMU PCB

IMU Board — STAR & Berkeley Formula Racing

Inertial measurement unit breakout board built for two programs: STAR's avionics flight stack and Formula SAE vehicle telemetry. Tracked orientation, acceleration, and angular rate. Mostly debugging SPI comms and validating clean data before either board touched a real system.

STM32 PCB Design Embedded C SPI/I2C STAR BFR
BFR →

P.04

BLE App + ESP32 Switch — STAR

Mobile app that sends BLE packets to an ESP32-based wireless switch. Owned both sides: the firmware running on the ESP32 and the app talking to it over Bluetooth. Built for remote actuation during hotfire operations.

ESP32 BLE Firmware Mobile STAR

P.05

RTD Board

RTD Board — STAR

Temperature sensing board that interfaces with RTDs to validate readings before they touch the flight stack. Critical for monitoring motor and battery thermals during hotfires. Built a dedicated board to isolate and verify the signal chain.

PCB Design Analog RTD Embedded C STAR

P.06

PT Board

PT Board — STAR

Pressure transducer board for measuring chamber pressure and barometric altitude. Built a dedicated board to isolate the analog signal chain and confirm noise wasn't corrupting readings before trusting it on the rocket.

PCB Design Analog ADC Embedded C STAR

P.07

Actuator Board

Actuator Board — STAR

Drives the servos and actuators on the rocket: fins, gimbal, recovery mechanism. Built a dedicated test board to validate drive signals and confirm every actuator works before it ever goes near the vehicle.

PCB Design PWM Servos Embedded C STAR

P.08

VEX Robotics

VEX Robotics Team 94517X

Autonomous algorithms with sensor-driven navigation and competition-grade reliability. Balanced control logic with real-world tuning under tight deadlines.

C++ Autonomous PID Control
Team page →

P.09

DreamIT

AI-native 3D game-generation engine built in Rust/Bevy with a React-Three-Fiber frontend. Working on game generation proposals and the core AI pipeline that turns prompts into playable worlds.

Rust Bevy React Three Fiber AI Pipeline
dreamit.build →

P.10

Cue

Cue

Context-aware alarm app that adapts to your schedule, location, and habits. Built in SwiftUI and React Native. Alarms that understand when you actually need to wake up.

SwiftUI React Native

P.11

EE143 — Custom Silicon Device Fabrication

End-to-end semiconductor fabrication on bare silicon wafer: design, photolithography patterning, doping, oxidation, metallization, and wire bonding to a packaged chip.

Semiconductor Photolithography CMOS Silicon

P.12

API Gateway — Go

Self-contained API gateway written in Go. Sits in front of a single HTTP backend and adds rate limiting, auth middleware, request logging, and routing. Minimal dependencies, production-minded.

Go HTTP Middleware Rate Limiting

P.13

BerkeleyFree

Web app to track empty classrooms at UC Berkeley with live schedule filters. Built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind. Never shipped. Berkeley's class schedule API proved unreliable.

Next.js TypeScript Tailwind

P.14

Scheme Art

Scheme Art Contest — CS 61A

Algorithmic art experiments in Scheme blending math, recursion, and functional programming. Generated visual patterns through recursive transforms and clean abstractions.

Scheme Functional Recursion

Where I Study

EECS — B.S.

UC Berkeley

Focus areas: Embedded Systems, Real-Time Systems, AI/ML, Digital Logic, Computer Architecture, and Systems Programming. Combining deep hardware knowledge with software to build things end-to-end, from PCB layout to firmware to full-stack apps.

What's On My Bench

🛰️

Diablo Avionics

Avionics firmware for real flight hardware. STM32, CAN-bus, embedded C. Building the systems that actually have to work when the rocket launches.

🎮

DreamIT

AI-powered 3D game engine built in Rust and Bevy. Describe a world in natural language, get a playable game. Exploring what it looks like when generation meets real-time rendering.

📱

Cue

Context-aware alarm and reminder app for iOS. Built in SwiftUI with Supabase. Alarms that actually know what you're doing, not just what time it is.